Former Chinese Ambassador to the United States (2013-2021) Cui Tiankai incisively criticized Europe’s obsession with Russia as a threat, saying that Europe’s biggest security threat comes from a “demon in its own mind,” not from a specific country, reported the the Global Times on Jan.12. Cui was addressing a forum titled “U.S. Relations with Allies in the Trump 2.0 Era” at the World Peace Forum Winter Series 2026, hosted by Tsinghua University in Beijing on Jan. 11.
Europe’s difficulty is that it assesses Russia as” its greatest security threat,” which is wrong. Therefore, “if you say you need protection … you must first identify what the security threat is. If even that cannot be clearly defined, what kind of protection are you asking for…?” he asked.
Europe’s biggest security threat lies not outside, but within. Quoting a well-known Chinese saying, Cui remarked, “It is easy to defeat a bandit in the mountains, but hard to eliminate the bandit in one’s own heart.”
The simultaneous difficulty is that Europe’s thinking is rooted in the past. Cui asked, “If one’s understanding of security in the 21st century remains trapped in outdated frameworks, or even in ways of thinking rooted in the 19th century, how can genuine security be achieved, and how can one truly feel secure?”
